Advice on hand painting frames

[thecreative]

I have recently been given a selection of old frames and want to paint them up to suit various artwork I have ready,
to date I've been using chalkboard paint for a deep black then a dead flat varnish over the top.

Interested in any other black options or paints to achieve a dead flat finish? plus I'd like to pick details out in colours from the paintings, again I've been using acrylics, any other options from the trade?

[Not your average framer]

Acrylic paints are very convenient, but are probably not your cheapest option. I tend to mix acrylic paint with Craig and Rose chalky emulsion parts, which for me is quite a practical combination as the chalky emulsion makes the acrylic go a bit further and therefore helps to save money also the chalky emulsion improves the covering qualities of the acrylic paint as well. Secondhand frames can be a bit of a lottery as a significant proportion of these are not cost effective to re-finish and re-use.

I suggest that you have a good look through the frames which you have got to separate the worthwhile frames from the less worthwhile ones. You might be surprised how much time, effort and materials some second hand frames will require to make them usable. Unfortunately there's quite a bit of a learning curve to finding out what's worthwhile to do and what's not! Each layer of paint which you need to apply is going to cost you time and money, so be careful to keep an eye on how much this costing you at first. After a while, you will develop a bit of a feel for this and start to figure out what works better for you.

Your forum name "Thecreative" sounds interesting. Is there an interesting story to tell about this? I don't mean to be nosey, but there's a lot of sharing what different members are doing and no doubt, there may be more that various members of the forum can help you with know how as time goes on as well and a little bit of background may help to keep such know how relevent for you.

[thecreative]

Thanks the ones I have are all in decent condition, I'm going to do some original paintings for each and want to bring the colours out in the frame, Ive done some red acrylic base with black over on a small table then rubbed back in places and it works quite well.

'The Creative' is just short for my company name.

[Not your average framer]

It will save you a little bit of time if the paint the frames will the red and when it is fully dried wash the frame over with water and lightly brush the black over the top allowing the water to help the black spread out as quite a thin coat. This will mean a lot less effort is requires to do the distressing. Lightly distressing with a green nylon pan shiner, will then be quick and easy.

Don't over do the distressing a miniumal level of distressing usually looks best! The pan shiner can be washed clean of paint dust under a running tap. An ordinary paint brush and a light application of some clear, or neutral wax is a quick and easy way to seal the surface, followed by leaving the frame to one side while waiting for the wax to harden. Job done! Hopefully you will find the nice and easy to do!

[Justintime]

I can recommend Black Acrylic Gesso as a deep black, these come in Student versions(cheaper) or try Liquitex professional. If you want to go ectreme, Stuart Semple does a range of "Blackest Blacks" and is a worth a look anyway for some crazy colours and additions.
Generally we use whatever is available locally, it used to be Farrow and Ball, now its Graphenstone and Eico from our local paint shop. We also mix our own colours with a full set of acrylics to get the perfect tone. Some of these are also useful to add to Van Dyck crystals for staining and achieving warmer deeper tones in the stain, Burnt Umber etc. We'll also use a tester pot as a base colour to mix our own from. We charge for a tester pot in the hand painting charge, to ensure materials costs are covered.

[thecreative]

Fantastic Thanks, I will do a little experimenting.

[Justintime]

A coat or two of Polyvine dead flat mat decorators varnish will seal the paint from greasy fingers and give you the dead flat finish you are after.

[Justintime]

A decent brush will make all the difference too. Have a look for "One Stroke" brushes, they come in expensive or student too.

[Not your average framer]

Experimenting is a big part of success in things like this!

[thecreative]

I've used the polyvine dead flat over black and it did the job, I saw the blackboard paint in an antique program where they used it to ebonise a piece of furniture but black acrylic gesso sounds worth a go.

[Not your average framer]

What's the long term plan? Are you thinking about making your own frames? Getting a long term supply of secondhand frames may not be so easy, so making your own may make a lot of sense. Depending on the volume you need, it might not be necessarily spend excessive amounts on getting yourself set up to do it. If you are happy to carry on hand painting your own frames, there are plenty of cheap moulding options out there. I use plenty of the cheap moulding myself and as I like do stacked moulding frames, I do things to make them look quite classy at the same time. I like to buy cheap, so that I can get a good margin from my selling prices. Aften a while you get to learn how this can really pay off. Avoiding spend too much money on materials is often the way to create a sucessful small business, which survives well in a difficult market! The present covid troubles mean that not all previous businesses will prove viable, but businesses which can oporate in these times will probably be able to pick up some of the trade which is no longer being fullfilled by businesses which will not survive the present troubles.

This is not a bad time to be moving into the market, if you know how to be frugal and let things grow at a pace that does not stretch your finances too much. I originally started with very limited finances and operating frugally is part of my mindset, so the current difficult times fit in to my own way of thinking already. Wether, I like it, or not I have been crippled by a stroke and a significant part of my focus is about working within my personal limitations, so I have a mojor emphasis on minimising both costs and labour demands up on myself. I guess you have probably noticed my emphasis on quick, simple and easy in some of my posts. I've only been thinking like this since my stroke. I am very happy to share some of my methods and ideas with others and hopefully this will be very timely for some now that we are facing a potential less easy future. Keep going for it, you are already donig much that is both sensible and well suited to doing the right things in these currently unpredictable times.

[thecreative]

The long term plan is to sell my own paintings, I have done plenty of commissions but I don't always enjoy the type of work and want to do my own stuff.

As you say cost is always an issue , shop bought frames are pretty limited but I have been given some older more solid ones and as I travel a lot with the day job its handy to call into the multitude of charity shops these days and be picky on anything they have. As I use a digital print as a starting point I can size any image to suit the frame, mount on mdf or acm and hopefully get on with it.

Adding hand painting would hopefully keep cost down but still give them a little lift in appearance.

Any advice is always appreciated from your experiences.

Thanks

[Not your average framer]

Your in a different area to me. Down here in Devon, Charity shops were a good source of frames for artists, but that's already become a thing of the past in my own town. There probably are a number of reasons for this. Property values is likely to be one of them. Too many people from outside of Devon want to buy homes in Devon and they have more disposible income than those who alredy live in Devon. The rapidly increasing prices also attract those who buy properties as an investment. As a result Charities have been selling their shops and taking the money, so less charity shops. The charity shops which are left only seem to want to sell higher value items, which down here usually are not the picture frames. Whether this will ever happen to your part of the country, is something that is difficult to know, but maybe it's something to consider and keep an eye on. Another potential issue may be the fact that charity shop frames are not necessarily always possible to find in the most useful sizes, so sometimes beng able to make your own frames may be helpful at times as well.

Strangely enough, the dismise of the local charity shops has not led to an increase in artists wanting frames made at all. I use to get asked to cut mounts for artists, who had bought charity shop frames, that market seems to have disappeared for me. The replacement source for local artists frames now seems to be Ikea and The Range. Local artists as a source of income for me are much more limited these days and rapidy becoming a thing of the past. Relying only just framing for my income is much less easy these days and I now do other things as well to keep things happening. The rural Devon economy has changed a lot since I first started here in Bovey Tracey and I have needed to become much more able to do other things as well. I suspect that this could well be the shape of things to come elsewhere as time goes by. The ebay economy has become quite a big thing with many of the locals and lots of people are making stuff at home to sell on ebay. Lots of things are made out of pallet wood now, in fact a significant number of the locals without a job are making a manner of things out of pallet wood and selling them on ebay.

[thecreative]

Yes there are a lot of changes going on the moment and many accelerated with Covid.

Charity shops up here are everywhere, some towns have up to 10 which I find remarkable, admittedly mostly tat but I've found they are more looking at the print in a frame rather than anything else so charging very little, lots of old brown timber that's not in vogue but on the plus side great to paint up. I'm changing to mount on acm and not use glass so hopefully that simplifies things.

Ive just got a few timber IKEA frames to test, there thinner than I wanted but there's a limited choice and their not idea but they can do as a temporary measure. Most people are happy with Range frames for the commissions I do, problem is once they have seen frames at that cost there not really willing to cough up another 50.00 on top of the painting for a framer to do a proper job, I have to be careful to keep costs looking realistic.

I can only think to use upcycled hand painted for my originals but offer an option to have it professionally framed, then prints will have to be IKEA or similar to make it anyway worth doing.